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I don’t really have a lot to say. Work is busy. Grad school is busy. Friends and family keep me preoccupied.

I don’t really have a lot to say.

It’s like emotional writer’s-block. My soul feels cluttered.

When I read the news I end up having nothing to say. Though I feel like screaming. And beating my chest and yelling until the human race comes to a screeching halt. Until the Earth stops spinning. Just for a moment, so I can smack everyone across the head with a rolling pin. Like a stereotype of an Italian matriarch. Knocking some sense into us all.

My soul is distressed.

I pray to God to deliver us all from this. To enlighten us suddenly so we can find a way to live together in peace. I pray for light to be shed into all the dark places in our lives.

But there’s no answer and the silence become uncomfortable.

I could almost become angry at God. And I certainly become frustrated with my faith. It all seems a little pointless to believe in something I can’t prove exists when that belief doesn’t even seem to lessen the suffering around me.

So I have to remind myself that faith without action is not really faith. That’s the tricky bit you see. I remind myself of one of my favorite quotes that I can’t be bothered to hunt down right now. Let me paraphrase:

Sometimes I want to demand of God why he allows all this pain and injustice in the world but I’m afraid God will ask me the same question.

I’m not sure how to answer God. Except to make sure I seize all the opportunities that come my way to help someone else. To show some love and kindness. Because I don’t like having a cluttered, distressed soul. And all that happens when I yell at God is that God yells back with deafening silence.

Faith, religion, beliefs, way of being. Whatever you want to call “it,” it is a journey, never a destination. You will never have all the answers. What made sense in this moment might not tomorrow, or 3 months from now, or in a decade. Conversely, some things may never need to change, but it doesn’t make them universal truths, applicable to all. The point is to keep growing and thinking about more than the present and ourselves, more than the current reality.

A new idea has sprung forth while reading Karen Armstrong’s book A History of God. It doesn’t quite sit right but it’s already poking at my faith, so I thought I’d write it down to see what you (the random person who stumbled across this post) thinks.

To me, there might be such a thing as the Great Being (still playing with the name), which need not include nor exclude the existence of God(s). I see the Universe/Cosmos as being a balance that encompasses all of time and space. What you do and decide will have a reaction, you may just never see it as it could take place anywhere either in the past, present, or future (when referring to time in a linear fashion). As can the actions of others, taken far away and/or in another time, affect you. “Bad” and “good” also stand in balance. Humans can choose to do only good and the balance will remain. This does not mean that doing good is futile, the good forces the equivalent bad to go somewhere else.

In this equation, God is the “good” and the Devil is the “bad.” But that would make them equal parts in a larger picture. The Great Being is that “larger picture.” It would encompass everything, including God. The Great Being would be Good and Bad, and yet neither. Perhaps a better name would be The Great Balance. It comes close to the way Karen Armstrong explains the concept of Brahma.

Karen Armstrong also mentions how God, the idea of God, has changed over time with some versions dying out and others growing to take their place. This is what I’m doing. It is not picking and choosing that which suits me just to appease my conscience. We live in a world that has grown closer through industry and technology. Information is shared quickly and often, and traveling is easier. Maybe my faith must pick from all it encounters in order to find a truth that works for me and this age. Maybe Christianity, and all religions that close themselves off from the the influence of other religions, are antiquated and must die out. Not so anarchy and atheism rise from the ashes, but rather yet another reincarnation of the understanding of God and the universe.

Or maybe I can worship the Christian God in church on Sundays and add on my own worship to that which is beyond all else: The Great Balance.

… How ironic somehow that I would name this greater being The Great Balance, seeing as that is what I seek in life, and have yet to learn. I wish for balance in all aspects of my life. Maybe our vision of a higher being is not so much what that higher being actually “is,” but rather what we ourselves lack in life.

I leave you with this quote from Karen Armstrong’s A History of God:

“After enlightenment, a man or woman must return to the marketplace and practice compassion for all living beings.”